Taylor Lorenz: The Disruptive Force of Online Creators

Guy Kawasaki:
I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable People. We're on a mission to make you remarkable. Helping me in this episode is the remarkable Taylor Lorenz. She is a technology reporter for The Washington Post. Prior to this position, she was a technology reporter for The New York Times, and before that, a staff writer for The Atlantic. What greater street cred can she have than Twitter? That bastion of free speech banned her in December 2022 because she asked Elon Musk, that defender of free speech, for a comment.
For twenty years, Taylor has documented how the internet culture impacts all aspects of society. Her new book, Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet, is the magnum opus of internet history. In this book, Taylor explains how early mommy bloggers monetize personal brands, teenage selfie stars redefine fame, and TikTok and YouTube creators forge new career paths outside traditional lines. Though easily dismissed as fleeting trends, these cultural shifts represent disruptive economic and social transformations.
Her book presents the definitive inside history of social media, influencers, and content creators. I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable People. This podcast, by the way, is sponsored by MERGE4, M-E-R-G-E and then the number four. They are the creator of the world's coolest socks, and I am an investor in the company. If you use the promo code "friendofguy," all lower case, you will get a 30 percent discount. And now with no further delay, here is the remarkable Taylor Lorenz. Do you think Elon banning you was a favor?
Taylor Lorenz:
I would say no because what he's done since I got back on the platform is radically restrict my reach and I pretty much have no ability to reach my audience on Twitter anymore. I don't think ultimately that was favorable to me, although it was funny and I enjoy how hypocritical he is about stuff, and I think our story spoke for itself, but my reach was completely eliminated on Twitter, and I've never been able to access certain features since I've been allowed back on. I think ultimately it was not good for me.
Guy Kawasaki:
I would make the case though, that is a great story, right?
Taylor Lorenz:
That's true. If you're thinking outside of Twitter, sure. I think he ends up looking bad and more people pay attention to my reporting, and that's always really a great thing. I just wish I could reach those people through Twitter the way that I used to be able to, but alas.
Guy Kawasaki:
Alas. Twitter may not be around much longer, so you may not have to worry about this.
Taylor Lorenz:
That's true. It's probably a good thing in the long run actually in that way.
Guy Kawasaki:
You already touched on it so I can tell what you think, but what do you make of getting banned or restricted now on a platform that is supposedly all about free speech?
Taylor Lorenz:
No one is more against free speech and free expression than Elon Musk. I think Tesla reporters have been talking about his track record in this area for years and just his tendency to sue anyone who speaks out against him. And of course, his claims of free speech on Twitter are also completely hypocritical. I'm not remotely the only journalist that he banned. He's banned many others, many of whom never were able to get back on, activists. He's very arbitrary in his restrictions on things, and he's completely full of it.
Guy Kawasaki:
It seems to me that there are so many constitutional law experts in the world, but they don't quite realize that the First Amendment prevents Congress from suppressing speech, not companies. Now, one consequence of that is Elon and Twitter are perfectly within their rights to ban and restrict you, but do you think most people screaming about First Amendment, they have no idea what they're talking about?
Taylor Lorenz:
I would say most people that rant about that stuff have absolutely no understanding what they're talking about. Any good journalist is a huge defender of free speech and press freedom. That is how we do our jobs. Unfortunately, we have to go up against billionaires like Elon Musk that want to sue us and intimidate us out of existence. That's the real threat to free speech. It's not journalists reporting a story. I was banned for asking Elon for comment for a story. It wasn't violating community guidelines.
Sure, everyone has a right to set community guidelines on their platform. And if somebody violates them, I understand their decision to ban them. It's a private company. They can do whatever they want. You could even say, "Look, we don't allow journalists on this platform," and just ban everyone. If that's your prerogative, just be clear about it, right? And with Elon, he's just misleading. It's a shame because journalists deserve the right to free expression and free speech. And again, that's how we do our jobs.
Guy Kawasaki:
Do you think he realizes how hypocritical he is, or he's just so far gone that his version of reality is completely different?
Taylor Lorenz:
He has so much money and so much power and he's really systematically surrounded himself with these “yes men” who will tell him anything he wants to hear. I'm not even sure if he is in touch with reality. He has such grievances. He's so petty and has these personal issues with people where he'll just get angry about something and go off. I don't know how in touch with reality he is anymore.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. This is my last Elon Musk question because I don't want to pollute my podcast too much, but so you've been a student of online social media internet for twenty something years now. I have to ask you, and I'm dead serious, this is a serious question, have you ever heard of anything more stupid than a cage fight between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg?
Taylor Lorenz:
No. It's literally parody level. It's crazy, and I think it's just such a perfect encapsulation of everything that's wrong with this Silicon Valley tech ecosystem, I mean, I shouldn't even peg it to Silicon Valley. It's really just this toxic masculinity of, oh, let's fight it out. I'm going to physically beat this CEO of this other company. It's just so absurd. And by the way, Elon will never do it because he knows he would lose frankly, because Mark Zuckerberg's been actually training and Elon doesn't actually want to put in any work.
Guy Kawasaki:
I can understand Elon being not so like this, but Mark Zuckerberg, he's married, he has three kids. I'm just thinking, someday will his kids or grandkids say to him, "Grandpa, is it true you were going to fight somebody in a cage?" And then the kids are going to say, "But grandma told me I should use my words, not my hands. Grandpa, what was that?" I can't hardly wait for that day.
Taylor Lorenz:
I think Mark always knew that Elon wouldn't do it. That's my theory because I think he just called his bluff. I believe that Mark has gotten very into UFC fighting, and I know he built an octagon in his backyard and everything, but I think he knew that Elon would never actually do it. But who knows? It's so ridiculous. Neither one of these men should be doing anything like this.
Guy Kawasaki:
In a sense. I know Peter Sagal from Wait Wait… Don't Tell Me!, and of course, I know The Onion. It's not fair because before you really had to be clever to find funny stuff. Now you can just print what people say like Jewish space lasers, cage fights. You don't even have to work to be The Onion or Wait Wait… Don't Tell Me! It's just not fair.
Taylor Lorenz:
Yeah, the truth is really stranger than fiction. There was some account on Twitter a while ago, but it would just share all these headlines that sounded like The Onion. They sounded too crazy to be true, and of course, they were true. I feel like that just says a lot about where we are in the world right now, especially with technology.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, let's get out of the cesspool and let's go to your book. No bullshit, Taylor, I read the book and I truly believe that the term magnum opus applies to your book. Holy shit. I learned so much about social media and online. I was there. I'm drinking the Kool-Aid. I'm right in the epicenter of all this, and I had no idea about all these great stories. Can I be more obvious for you, listeners, that if you care about internet history, you must buy this book. There's nothing close to it. It's as if Walter Isaacson woke up and did something without being a fanboy. This is a great book.
Taylor Lorenz:
Thank you. That means so much.
Guy Kawasaki:
As a writer, I have some questions for you. All right? How long, my God, did it take you to write this book?
Taylor Lorenz:
About two and a half years from when I really first started writing to finish. It took quite a while.
Guy Kawasaki:
This is why you're still a journalist at The Times or The Post? This was your moonlighting?
Taylor Lorenz:
Yes, I did it nights and weekends, and it took a lot of work and it was crazy. I don't know how I was able to do it in two and a half years, honestly.
Guy Kawasaki:
What did you use for your sources?
Taylor Lorenz:
I interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people. I talked to early people at these tech companies affiliated with Myspace, early marketers, early content creators, tons of early bloggers and people who were there in the nineties and watched that rise of the social web happen, YouTubers, people who did the first ever YouTube ad deals. I talked to George Stroumboulopoulos, who pioneered the partner program at YouTube. I talked to Tim Shey, who started Next New Networks.
He co-founded Next New Networks, which actually used the word creator in its modern usage in terms of content creator. Just so many people and so many really fascinating, amazing content creators, people that were making things on the internet before it was cool to make things on the internet. They never did it even for profit or anything. It was just pure creativity and expression. I loved it.
Guy Kawasaki:
And much of the research was conducted during the pandemic. Was all this virtual?
Taylor Lorenz:
No, I actually traveled extensively, which was very stressful in 2020 and had my N95 mask on and did a lot of on the ground reporting for this, which is definitely hard, but I'm glad I did because I do think sometimes to get people to talk, you really need to meet with them in person and talk to them, especially if they've been wronged by the media. A lot of people, especially the women in my book, were really maligned in the media for what they were doing at the time. I wanted them to know me and trust me.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'm going to get really tactical one writer to another. What word processor did you use?
Taylor Lorenz:
Google Docs. I actually ran out of space on Google Docs, which I didn't know was possible. I had to break my manuscript up.
Guy Kawasaki:
You wrote this in Google Docs?
Taylor Lorenz:
Yes. The book was originally twice as long. I had to cut it in half. It was going to be over 158,000 words and it ended around eighty something.
Guy Kawasaki:
My head is exploding. You didn't use any style sheets, anything? Did you just dive in with this online text editor?
Taylor Lorenz:
Yeah, I only used Google Docs. That's the only thing I've ever used to write. I've never used anything else. Maybe I used Microsoft Word in high school or middle school or something because we didn't have Google Docs. But as soon as Google Docs has been around, I've only ever written in Google Docs.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh my god, I feel old. Oh shit.
Taylor Lorenz:
What is the other way? I don't know any other way.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh my God! If you deal with an older writer like me, I have Microsoft Word set up, and Microsoft Word has styles. Style would be hitting, and then there's first paragraph, which doesn't start with an indentation and then the normal paragraph does and all this kind of stuff. The beauty of a style sheet is if you decide to change something, like the first paragraph, every place you assign that style will immediately change with it, which is very useful. Listen, Taylor, I will give you personalized one-on-one Microsoft Word tutoring.
Taylor Lorenz:
I think I just avoid Microsoft anything because I don't know how to use it, but I will say Google Docs is not meant to write books in.
Guy Kawasaki:
No kidding.
Taylor Lorenz:
It was very hard. I ran out of space. It was very hard. It was actually kind of a nightmare. If I do ever write another book, I'm going to take you up on this and learn to use Microsoft Word.
Guy Kawasaki:
The production people at Simon & Schuster must have just shit a brick and said, "Oh my God, this is the manuscript. It's a link to Google Doc?"
Taylor Lorenz:
Yeah, they actually said something like that. They were trying to explain to me why Google Docs doesn't work and I don't know what else to do. I only know how to write in Google Docs.
Guy Kawasaki:
Taylor, I could have made your life better two and a half years ago. I didn't have a physical copy of your book. Who gave you blurbs?
Taylor Lorenz:
I didn't get any blurbs because I got very nervous to ask for them. And then it was too late and I missed the deadline. I'm very self-critical of my work, and I asked one person for a blurb and he said no. And so then I got too scared to ask anybody else.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wait, who would say no to this book?
Taylor Lorenz:
A content creator.
Guy Kawasaki:
You're not going to name names?
Taylor Lorenz:
I don't want to name and shame. The back of my book, they just put praise for Taylor Lorenz. It's very hard for me to ask for things. It's a problem that I have, and so I need to get better at that. Just after that one person said that they wouldn't read it, I thought, oh, no one wants to read it. I'm a failure. I spiraled, and now I don't have any blurbs.
Guy Kawasaki:
Taylor, day two of the Guy Kawasaki-Taylor Lorenz special tutoring program is how to blow past doubt like that. Okay?
Taylor Lorenz:
I know, I know.
Guy Kawasaki:
I got to tell you, I think blurbs are overrated. Let's say that I was the author of this book. Whose blurb would really, really matter? Maybe Vinton Cerf. Maybe Jimmy Wales. That's all I can think of. You don't want Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk or any of those clowns, right? They're all bullshit. Who else? Someone in charge of the Library of Congress. It would be something like that, right?
Taylor Lorenz:
Yes. This is exactly the problem I went through. And to be clear, I could have asked any of my journalist friends to do it. I just felt like that doesn't make a difference anyway. I should have asked some people like that, but I just got nervous. Once this one YouTuber turned me down, I thought, oh, forget it. It's too much.
Guy Kawasaki:
You're telling me LonelyGirl15 turned you down and that turned you off to this? Oh my God.
Taylor Lorenz:
No, no, no. No one in the book. No one in the book. No.
Guy Kawasaki:
Is there an introduction?
Taylor Lorenz:
No, I just wrote the introduction.
Guy Kawasaki:
There was no forward by?
Taylor Lorenz:
No, I did it all myself, Guy. I did it all myself. I didn't even know that that was an option, but I've had friends. A friend of mine just came out with a book and was like, "Oh, who did you get to do your introduction?" And I said, "Oh, I didn't know that that was something that I should have asked for, so I just didn't." But I think it's fine, whatever. My book's doing well.
Guy Kawasaki:
I actually have more respect for you because I think blurbs and forwards don't really change. Now having said that, I am trying to get a forward for my book from Jane Goodall. That is meaningful. Jane Goodall is in a class by herself. But if you got a forward from most people, I don't think it would matter anyway.
Taylor Lorenz:
If someone amazing would be down to do it, that would've been great. But if it doesn't happen, I wrote this whole book, and I think the book stands on its own.
Guy Kawasaki:
You can put Guy Kawasaki said, “this is the magnum opus of online history”.
Taylor Lorenz:
That'll be on the paperback.
Guy Kawasaki:
Now, I pick up the book, I start reading and the first names I encounter are Tinsley Mortimer and Olivia Palermo. Taylor, I had no freaking idea who the hell are these people. It seems to me that the gist that I got was that these nerds on the West Coast were unknowingly making shit for socialites on the East Coast. Is that a good summary of how it all began?
Taylor Lorenz:
Yeah, basically. I think Silicon Valley built these tools and platforms, and then people, especially I think New York was such a nexus of internet culture in those early years, were doing all of these unexpected things with it. I talk about socialite rank, which was actually two Russian immigrants who, there's a reveal, I don't want to give it away, were actually the ones masterminding a lot of it. But yeah, completely upended New York society.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh my God. Until two days ago, I'd never even heard of them. I'm reading your book and now I'm getting the distinct impression that the origin of all this is women being hassled by misogynistic men.
Taylor Lorenz:
I mean, a lot of it, I don't know that. The socialite rank story, for sure. That's definitely what it was. These are socialites, so they're beautiful women. The socialite story was so interesting because it was basically this online ranking system for socialites that was created by two complete outsiders in society. And that was the first time that outsiders had really been able to upend New York society in that way.
I thought it was such a good metaphor for the internet too, because I think we're all ranked and there's these public metrics around all of us and we're all conscious of ourselves online and our status on the internet. That's what I opened with.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh my God. Do you have any insights into why men think it's okay to be so cruel and basically evil online? What makes them think it's okay? I'm sure you're attacked too, right? I'm sure you could tell me stories about just the most heinous things that people have said to you. Have you had any insight to what is going on in their brains?
Taylor Lorenz:
Yeah. I think that misogyny and sexism are so normalized, unfortunately. I think we've made great strides, but it's definitely not as bad as it was twenty years ago, but we still have such a long way to go. I think especially the right-wing cultural movement, it's very predicated on sexism and restricting women's rights and autonomy. I think culturally it's very normalized and it's very rewarded, and these platforms reward outrage and they reward anger and harassment and a lot of that's dedicated towards women.
Guy Kawasaki:
But why?
Taylor Lorenz:
Because they're angry. They're angry. They don't want their power challenged. I think men have grown up in this world, a lot of them, where they're told that they are all powerful and women are not, and women are objects and their value declines with age. I've encountered so much of this as a tech reporter. I was always told in my twenties that I was too young to be writing about tech, which is very funny because there's men in their twenties that write about tech all the time.
The minute that I turned thirty, people started writing that I'm too old and I'm over the hill. Meanwhile, we've got Walter Isaacson and all the other men tech reporters, especially tech columnists, now that I'm a columnist, writing into their sixties, as they should. More power to them. It's sexism and I think sexism pervades every aspect of our society because we live in a very patriarchal society.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wow. Now, as the author of the magnum opus, I'm going to ask you for just some insights or best practices, lessons that you would like to communicate based on your examination of this online history. First of all, for consumers, for just users of social media.
Taylor Lorenz:
I think a few lessons. One, I think that we have to realize what these platforms incentivize and be really mindful of how we use them. I think privacy is a really important thing, and I took it for granted myself. I used to put way too much on the internet. But I think as we live in this more hyperconnected world and as more and more people grow audiences and anybody can go viral, and especially these days, you'll be out on the subway and somebody can be recording you or whatever.
I think privacy is really important. I hate to sound like a boomer, but really be careful about what you share online because everything online is forever. And especially with things like facial recognition, your online footprint is only growing.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. Next, for creators.
Taylor Lorenz:
For creators, I would say never rely on one platform. You're building these platform enabled companies. Obviously social media has been incredible for distribution and audience growth, but as we know, these companies are very fickle. They can change their algorithm overnight. You can lose access to your audience tomorrow, and you don't want that to be the end of your career. I think diversify and try to build as direct a relationship as possible with your audience.
One other thing I would say is ideally use your platform to launch a product or build some sort of sustainable business that doesn't necessarily require you vlogging every day of your life. You might get really tired of documenting your life, and so you might do what a lot of celebrities have done and content creators. You get big enough and you say, "Okay, let me launch a clothing line or business," or something where you can use your platform to diversify your revenue and you don't have to just worry about making content every day until you're ninety.
Guy Kawasaki:
For entrepreneurs trying to create a startup.
Taylor Lorenz:
One thing that I think is so interesting, and I interviewed a bunch of business school people for my book about this, is the way that the content creator industry has flipped a lot of business models on their head. It used to be that you would develop a product and then go out and market it and try and get that product in front of the right people. Now, people use the internet to just cultivate audiences and then develop products that serve those audiences. I think if you're an entrepreneur, community building is really important.
If you want to see, hey, is there an audience for something, talk to people that have built audiences in the space that you're going into or try to build your own audience. Actually, I just saw you had a s sip of Liquid Death. I think that's a company that's done a really good job. That company came out of nowhere and they've cultivated this personality online. It's instantly recognizable, and they've done all of these really funny things. They have a real personality and a voice online, and I think that's very powerful in today's marketing world.
Guy Kawasaki:
To make sure I got this right, you're saying instead of this “Field of Dreams” idea, build it and they will come, you actually build the community and then figure out what they want. You work backwards from their needs.
Taylor Lorenz:
Yes, or maybe you have a general sense of the community, you can talk to other creators in that community. I'm just saying start with the community. There's communities for everything that exist out there. Figure out your target market and try to cultivate that and build your product in tandem with that community. I think actually good people in tech already do this because you build a product and you evolve your product to the needs of a user base, but I think it's taking it a step further and really trying to create community around your product on the internet.
Guy Kawasaki:
For brands, big brands.
Taylor Lorenz:
For brands, yes, big brands. Be careful how you engage online, for sure. I think it's a minefield out there for brands these days because the internet is so chaotic, you don't have a lot of control. But I would say don't back down. This is my pet peeve with brands. Bud Light and what happened to Dylan Mulvaney is a really good example. Bud Light did this marketing campaign for Pride Month where they did tons of LGBTQ influencers posted about Bud Light, right?
Dylan Mulvaney, a trans influencer, posts one post. She becomes the target of this horrible right-wing outrage campaign against her and Bud Light really caved and hung her out to dry. I think that was such a missed opportunity for them because now a lot of LGBTQ people have this negative view of them and even people like myself are just like, oh, that was a horrible way to treat this poor woman who was targeted with a hate campaign.
I think, look, when you're at the center of controversy, if you're the target of an outreach campaign or if you're Target and you have people showing up and saying, "Oh, why are you carrying colorful boys clothing? Boys should only wear blue," don't buy into the outrage on the internet.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wait, so if you are CMO of Anheuser-Busch, you would've told them to basically go pound salt?
Taylor Lorenz:
Yeah. I would've said, look, we support the LGBTQ community because that's a huge market, and ultimately most people in America support LGBTQ rights. That's actually most people. This is not a fringe view. What it is this very small and very vocal minority of group of people online that want to create outrage. I think you need to say, look, we recognize this for what it is, which is a politically charged outrage campaign.
We're here to sell beer. We would love LGBTQ people to drink our beer. We're here for everyone, and we don't like this hate that's being directed over one Instagram post. That's how I would've handled it, and I think it would've gone better than it did where they backtracked and left her out to dry.
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, in a sense, if people take the marketing lesson from this as you should not support LGBTQ+, it's actually not true. The message is the opposite that you should support and stick with it. Now you got the right-wings who are protesting for one reason. You got the LGBTQ community who feels betrayed. Nobody's buying beer. That's the problem, right?
Taylor Lorenz:
Yeah, exactly. I think you should develop your values as a brand and stick to those values, because ultimately that's your company. A company like Patagonia or some of these other companies that are really mission-based, they've cultivated these brands and they have their values and they stick with them. I think that if you are going to, for instance, engage in a Pride Month campaign and say, "Look, these are part of our corporate values," you better stick to those values and not cave at the first sign of anger on the internet.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, okay. Next group, politicians using the internet.
Taylor Lorenz:
I would say it's a very powerful tool for reaching people, and I would say don't underestimate the internet. I think that's what a lot of politicians have done is they dismiss the internet or they say, "Oh, it's secondary to the rest of the campaigning that they do." But we've seen time and time again that politicians that leverage the internet get further than those who don't. I think don't be afraid of it, be out there, be on transparent, engage with your voter base, use it to listen to your community and your constituents, and don't just shy away and hand it off to the comms person.
Guy Kawasaki:
But don't you think for many politicians because of their stupidity or maybe they handed the password to interns, there's greater risk of downside than upside using social media?
Taylor Lorenz:
I guess I should say, use it to listen, not necessarily that they have to post on there all the time or that they need to post everything that they're thinking. I think that's probably a message for I'm sure there's campaign people and PR people, but I think that a lot of politicians just hand off their accounts and they never go on there, and they never really listen to the feedback from their constituents or read these stories or say, "Hey, who's following my page? Am I reaching the right people?"
Use it as a listening tool. It's a way to hear from so many people at scale in a way that's very hard to do offline. Not to take it as gospel, these platforms are also all very skewed by algorithms and conversations are not always representative, but I think it's a good tool to get a temperature check on certain things.
Guy Kawasaki:
We're leaving that section. Next section, in a sense, aren't you a journalist/influencer/socialite yourself?
Taylor Lorenz:
I don't think I'm rich enough to be a socialite yet, unfortunately. But yeah, I started as a blogger. I started as a content creator. That's how I got my start. I never went to journalism school or had any professional background, and I built my audience up all by myself until I got into traditional media. I've always really believed in the power of the internet to circumvent these barriers that have been up. I definitely think, yeah, in a lot of ways I am. I don't make a living selling SpawnCon. I do make a living at my job, so I don't engage in that part, but I do have a big audience.
Guy Kawasaki:
When you show up for your interview at The Post or The Times, do you tell them, "Listen, I got this much following, this much behind me. That's part of the package you get when you hire me as a journalist," is that part of the interview now?
Taylor Lorenz:
When The Times recruited me very aggressively, I was beating The New York Times on stories, and they actually put this in my job announcement. I had beaten them on so many stories in such quick succession that they just decided to hire me. I didn't have that conversation. I actually don't think they were at all aware of my following, and it was really hard to navigate because I think then they were suddenly like, wait a minute, you have half a million on TikTok. My content, often I write about viral things.
Things spread a lot and I think they were like, whoa, how do we manage this? When The Post started recruiting me, I had a lot of those conversations upfront. I was like, by the way, I have a really big internet presence and I write about people that have millions of followers. A lot of the stories that I do inherently get a lot of viral attention for good and bad. They were like, no, we love that. We are happy with it and we want that, but it could be to your advantage.
Guy Kawasaki:
Do you think a journalist can just write, or you have to be active on social media as part of the job?
Taylor Lorenz:
I think it depends. There's so many jobs in journalism that actually don't require you to be out there, right? You could be an editor. I used to be a social media director. There's a lot of behind the scenes jobs in news organizations if you don't want to be in the public eye. I think if you do want to be the reporter and you don't mind being a public figure, which all reporters inevitably end up as, you do have to engage the public because that's your job is to be out there talking to people and listening to people.
Our national security reporters are not out on TikTok necessarily, but they do engage with the public to a certain extent and certainly their sources and stuff. I think it's helpful. If you don't build your own audience, you rely on a media company for your audience. If that media company lays you off, you suddenly don't have access to an audience anymore, and you're in a really tough position. I don't trust any company. I am a child of the recession. I'm a millennial.
I grew up watching people put an enormous amount of effort and loyalty into companies, and then they just lay them off immediately after forty years with nothing. I don't trust any company, again, I started building my own audience for myself on the internet, and I never want to be in a position where I have to rely on a company to reach the people that I want to reach because I don't trust them. They will lay me off.
I love The Washington Post and they're really great to me, but I know that if they got in crazy financial straits and they had to lay off half of the newsroom, I could be vulnerable. The Pulitzer Prize winners have been laid off very recently. You could be the best journalist in the world, and it doesn't matter. These are the economic realities of the media business. I try to hedge against that, and I recommend other reporters try to hedge in different ways. Even maybe it's just starting an email newsletter list. That if something happens, you can still reach people.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wow, you are an old school journalism worst nightmare. Now the tail is wagging the dog truly, right?
Taylor Lorenz:
In my book, I write about this new media ecosystem. I didn't create this ecosystem. I would love to work in a world where I could just go to work from 9:00 a.m. to a 5:00 p.m. at a company, have healthcare forever, put in my eight hours of work, and go home. That would be really great. I would love to not have to be on social media building up a following and worrying about these things. But unfortunately, this is a reality. I just want people to not get lost in it. Because again, I've just seen so many phenomenal journalists get laid off, and it's terrible.
Guy Kawasaki:
If somebody's on the outside looking in at you and thinking, oh my God, what a great job. You worked for The Post. Everybody answers your phone call. Everybody kisses up to you. You write this bestseller, blah, blah, blah. But now let's just talk about the side they don't see, which is, to the extent you want to, tell me about how you're attacked online. What happens there?
Taylor Lorenz:
I would say the downside of writing, especially politically relevant stories, is you get a lot of big and powerful people to come after you. Tucker Carlson famously did many segments. Fox News, in general, covers me very frequently, and you become a target. Because there's this entire political ideology in this country that's very anti-media and anti-journalism, and they don't like people that are basically speaking truth to power and calling them on their lies. I've had to deal with an enormous amount of harassment.
And just to be clear, I mute all of my mentions on Twitter. I don't care about people yelling at me. It's more the in-person stuff. I've had people physically threaten me. I've had people terrorize my family members and my friends, and that's just very isolating and terrifying. I'm dealing with a stalker right now. It's just very scary and invasive, and there's a lot of downsides that come with it. As a reporter too, these right-wing billionaires will often back lawsuits just meant to smear you.
I've had people pay bots to message every single person that follows me, and The Washington Post spreading lies about me. There's tons of weird websites online that spread conspiracies about me. This is what comes with being a journalist these days, and I think it's a real problem, unfortunately. People don't see that side.
Guy Kawasaki:
How do you deal with all that bullshit?
Taylor Lorenz:
I would say 2020 was the worst year because it was the early days of the pandemic, and it was so isolating, and Tucker was being so aggressive. It wasn't just Tucker. It was all these big right-wing figures. It just got really hard, and I felt really bad, especially for the people around me. I felt like I couldn't protect them. That was the hardest. But then I think everything bad, all the worst things that they could do happened, and I was like, you know what? I'm still around. I'm actually fine.
Forget it and screw these people. I'm just going to keep doing my jobs. I'm definitely better at dealing with it now, but you need to have a really good, strong sense of self. That's what I'll say. I think actually, anybody, I've talked to somebody else about this just in terms of attention generally, if you get a lot of attention for anything, whether it's fame or online attention or whatever, and you don't have a strong sense of self, you can quickly spiral and you can start to believe what people that hate you say about you.
I could barely ask for blurbs on my book still because I definitely have a lot of self-doubt, but I have enough to know. I've done enough stories. I know I'm a good journalist. I know I'm a good journalist, and I know I'm right on a lot of my stories and I do a good job. I just don't listen to any of it. I just think it's silly. They have an agenda usually.
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, I just think it's absolutely ridiculous that it comes to this, that you have to give me an answer like that. Why should that be necessary in 2023? It's utterly ridiculous.
Taylor Lorenz:
100 percent. And also, I'll just say, I hate how journalists' personal lives are so torn apart. I'm very private about my life. I stick to my work. It makes me so nervous when people come after friends or family or anybody associated with me just because they're associated with me. It's just disturbing, and I don't like that part of it. But my family's amazing and they're very cool with it, so it's been fine. They can laugh it off, and they are so proud of me, thankfully.
Guy Kawasaki:
More power to you. Do you think that the number of followers a person has is a proxy for anything?
Taylor Lorenz:
Yeah, it is and it isn't. It's a proxy for maybe how much influence they have on a specific platform, but I would say especially with the rise of algorithmic feeds and TikTok's For You page, followers are becoming less and less important. It's more about do you have distribution in the feed?
I do think followers can be a proxy of a certain type of influence, but some of the biggest CEOs in the world don't even have social media, or they have 200 followers on Instagram and that doesn't mean that they're any less powerful. I don't think it should be a measure of anyone's self-worth, and I don't think that it's a measure for true power.
Guy Kawasaki:
How influential do you think influencers are anymore?
Taylor Lorenz:
Oh God.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, wait. Taylor Swift says, "Go register to vote." Tens of thousands of people registers to vote. I understand that. I have, I don't know, six, seven, eight million followers. If I told them to all go listen to a podcast, it wouldn't move the needle. Maybe I'm just a loser. But how powerful are influencers? Can they sell lipstick? Can they get people to register to vote?
Taylor Lorenz:
Oh, they can absolutely. They can sway elections. Look at what things like Gen-Z for Change have done in terms of leveraging the collective power of content creators. I think it totally depends on the relationship that people have with the influencer and what they expect. If you follow somebody because they're amazing.
They recommend products to you and that's why you follow them because you like to shop the clothing that they wear, and then they're talking about politics and registering to vote, I don't know that people would listen as much as if maybe somebody else that was more politically active said something like that. You rely on them for political related information.
That's much more powerful. But look, everything in our world is mediated by online influence. Online influence is this really powerful modern form of currency. If you amass a lot of it, you can do a lot. Influencers are able to sell tens of millions of dollars of products and build these massive businesses because they're able to get people to buy or do what they want.
Guy Kawasaki:
You know this for fact, or you're just from the outside looking in? Okay, I grant you, Kim Kardashian can do that. Paris Hilton can do that. But what about Trixie and Tiffany who are pushing lipstick?
Taylor Lorenz:
Yes, I write about these people all day long, and I see the financials of a lot of these people. This is a half a trillion dollar industry and growing. This is a huge industry. It's not just shaping entertainment and lifestyle. Look at sports and look at the way I'm writing a story right now on the University of Colorado's Football Team and the amount of money and attention that these young college athletes are able to get now with sponsorships because they're influencers, because they've grown massive online followings, because they've generated hype on the internet.
It's affecting everything. And same with politics too. I think we see people generating attention and that these fringe candidates are able to get themselves on the ballot because they are able to build an online audience.
Guy Kawasaki:
In a sense, you are the CMO of your book, right? How are you allocating your marketing and budget and attention for your book?
Taylor Lorenz:
Yes. In terms of how am I promoting it?
Guy Kawasaki:
Yes.
Taylor Lorenz:
I've been trying to get the word out any way that I can. Most of the way that I've been doing it is through podcasts, because I think podcasts are just a really good way to have a discussion about the book and reach people that are interested in ideas and tend to read. I've heard that TV doesn't really do anything. I haven't gotten booked on any TV, so I'll let you know if I do. But I've mostly been doing podcasts and newsletters and, of course, using my own social media following.
I've been documenting my book process and updating my own followers. I started a meme account to promote my book on Instagram. I've just been doing a lot of digital marketing, you could say, which is really the only kind of marketing I know how to do. I don't really know how to do the traditional media very well.
Guy Kawasaki:
As you look back, do you think it's harder to write a book or market it?
Taylor Lorenz:
Oh, that's a really good question. Marketing it is much harder than I realized. I will say that. Developing a marketing plan, it's given me a huge respect for people that are able to do it well, because I think I thought, well, I wrote the book, how hard can it be? I'll post it and people talk about it.
I'm like, oh, no, it's actually extremely hard. I would say they're equally as difficult because writing the book was really difficult, but marketing it has been really difficult, and I've learned a lot about marketing. As somebody that's not a marketer really, I've just learned so much about these different tactics and strategies.
Guy Kawasaki:
Like what?
Taylor Lorenz:
One thing I learned is how to successfully tease pre-orders. I started promoting this book two months ago, basically as soon as I got the link up and everything. I realized actually I probably should have saved a lot closer to my publication date. I've also learned to talk about the book differently. The way that I first was positioning the book and talking about the book was like, oh, it's just about the internet.
I wasn't doing a very good job explaining it. I think people were like, okay, but what about the internet? What do you mean it's just an internet history book? What about it? Now I've been mooning my messaging, you could say, and trying to more clearly communicate the ideas and themes.
Guy Kawasaki:
Isn't Simon & Schuster helping you in all this stuff?
Taylor Lorenz:
Publishers can only do so much. I think they do a good job of getting your book in the hands of book reviewers, and that's great. I'm so grateful to them for doing that. But no, they rely on the author for almost everything. I asked them, "Hey, guys, can I get a list of TikTokers? Book TikTok is huge. You guys must have this huge database, because, of course, you're a publisher. Those are people that you want to market to."
They said, "Oh no. We don't keep anything like that. We rely on the authors." I'm like, if I was in marketing at a publisher, that's the first thing I would do. It's just interesting. But publishing's a really tough business, and they're focused on actually getting the book out too. That's their main focus is getting the book printed, getting the cover out. They've done a lot of work. I'm grateful for it.
Guy Kawasaki:
Are you going on an actual physical book tour?
Taylor Lorenz:
I'm trying to. I've been calling up places and trying to schedule that and trying to schedule events. That also falls on the author. Simon & Schuster did schedule two things. One in New York, I'll be at The Strand.
Guy Kawasaki:
Two?
Taylor Lorenz:
Yes, and I'll be at Politics and Prose. But other than that, it's on me. I've been trying to call people up and be like, "Hey, it's Taylor Lorenz."
Guy Kawasaki:
I mean, I saw you trying to find a restaurant in Manhattan yesterday.
Taylor Lorenz:
Yeah, I'm still trying to find a venue for my book event in New York. I have to do that. After I get off this call, I'll call some places.
Guy Kawasaki:
Are you coming to San Francisco?
Taylor Lorenz:
I really want to. I've also been trying to find somebody to host something in San Francisco for me, if you have any ideas.
Guy Kawasaki:
I have ideas.
Taylor Lorenz:
I would love to hear them, because San Francisco is the center of all of this technology.
Guy Kawasaki:
I would make the case that it's not San Francisco, it's San Jose.
Taylor Lorenz:
That's true. General area.
Guy Kawasaki:
I will think about how we resolve that problem for you. One really tactical question. If you had a choice, let's say God said, "Taylor, I'm going to grant you this wish. You can either have The New York Times review your book or Marques Brownlee," who would you pick?
Taylor Lorenz:
Marques Brownlee, undeniably. If Marques talked about my book, I think I would lose my mind. I think that would be huge. I should send him a copy. He's great.
Guy Kawasaki:
Now, on the other hand, there are probably people out there who are thinking, if Taylor Lorenz would mention my book, I would lose my mind.
Taylor Lorenz:
Yeah, maybe.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'm one of them.
Taylor Lorenz:
I'm always really flattered when people do reach out to Marques.
Guy Kawasaki:
I knew Marques when he was just a college student looking at old iPhones.
Taylor Lorenz:
He is so incredible.
Guy Kawasaki:
I once convinced the CEO of Motorola to do a one-on-one conference with Marques.
Taylor Lorenz:
Wow!
Guy Kawasaki:
This when not that many people knew who he was, but I thought he was just fantastic from the first time I saw him. We have another brief section here. This is called Taylor's Tips. Where do you, Taylor, get your news?
Taylor Lorenz:
Ooh, I read a lot of newsletters. I love the newsletter Garbage Day by Ryan Broderick. It's just Garbage Day on Substack. They do a lot of great roundups. There's also one called LinkedIn Bio and Embedded. It's “embedded.substack.com”. These are just great digital culture newsletters that I really enjoy reading and I get a lot of news from.
I do still go to The Washington Post homepage every day to see what's going on, so I have a sense of what my colleagues are working on and breaking news. I'm a big Apple News person now. Ever since I stopped using Twitter really for news, I've been using Apple News more. I mostly rely on aggregators. And then of course, I listen to a ton of news podcasts. I listen to The Wall Street Journal Daily Podcast.
Guy Kawasaki:
What aggregator do you use?
Taylor Lorenz:
I use Nuzzle, which would scrape all the links from your Twitter feed and rank them, and I go on Techmeme a lot, which is an aggregator. There's Techmeme and Mediagazer, which are these old school. They aggregate the most shared relevant news in tech and media, and those are the ones that I read the most.
Guy Kawasaki:
Who are the people you consider important to follow?
Taylor Lorenz:
Oh, also really good question. Let's see, I love this girl Coco Mocoe. She's a talker, and she's a cultural commentator. She's just really smart about pop culture, so I really love following her. I'm trying to think of other people. I follow mostly other journalists. I've got to recommend other journalists. There's Kat Tenbarge at NBC, phenomenal reporter on Women's Rights and the internet, and Rebecca Jennings, Vox is just a phenomenal cultural critic.
Kelsey Weekman, one of the best internet culture reporters today, she's primarily freelance, is so good. NBC Digital is really good. Morgan Sung at TechCrunch is really good. There's so many. I'm trying to think. I don't want to miss anybody, and everyone that's in the dedication of my book. I talk about these other reporters on my beat that are so phenomenal, and I don't think I could do my job without their reporting.
Guy Kawasaki:
If you could only use one service, which one would it be?
Taylor Lorenz:
Oh, God. One platform? I want to say TikTok.
Guy Kawasaki:
Really?
Taylor Lorenz:
I want to say TikTok because I'm just thinking it's either TikTok or Instagram, but if I could only use one, it would be TikTok, because TikTok is how I know a lot of what's going on in the world. For instance, when the Maui fires happened, there were people showing that were on the ground that were talking about what was happening to them.
I remember when the war in Ukraine broke out, you could see these real videos from Ukraine. I just think it really gives me a window into the world in a way that Instagram doesn't. I think Instagram is definitely where I have a lot more friends and can find my connections.
Guy Kawasaki:
You're not worried about the Communist Chinese spying on you on TikTok?
Taylor Lorenz:
If China wants my data, they could buy it from a third party Facebook vendor. We have absolutely no data privacy in this country.
Guy Kawasaki:
This is the last section. What if Mark Zuckerberg asked you to redesign the Facebook algorithm, what would you do?
Taylor Lorenz:
Wow, I would be so thrilled. Do you mean the Facebook, the Blue app, the original Facebook, or anything?
Guy Kawasaki:
Or Threads or any algorithm there.
Taylor Lorenz:
Ooh, okay. Number one, I would make it a place for reliable news. I know this is very self-serving as a journalist, but I think Facebook has completely shied away from news because of all of the controversy and misinformation that they platform. They've basically just cut off access to news. I think these platforms can be a really powerful way to inform people about the world. I just think that they need to stop rewarding outrage and the most aggressive, loud disinformation purveyors.
I would redesign an algorithm to reward reliable news and information, and I would do that by whitelisting certain accounts that I know are reliable. I would do that by boosting journalists, working to verify journalists, working to verify information, and I would try and make it more of a resource for people to learn reliable information about the world.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, so let's say you do that. Does Fox and Breitbart make the cut?
Taylor Lorenz:
No, because they're not publishing reliable news and information.
Guy Kawasaki:
I know where you stand.
Taylor Lorenz:
This is probably why I'm not CEO of Facebook.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, next one, do you have nieces?
Taylor Lorenz:
I do, yes.
Guy Kawasaki:
How old?
Taylor Lorenz:
One is almost a year and one is four.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh, this is a little premature, but let's say you had teenage nieces, and they say, "Auntie Taylor, I want to be an influencer, what should I do?” What do you say to that niece?
Taylor Lorenz:
I would ask them why they want to be an influencer. I think it's really revealing. A lot of people want to be content creators just for the fame. A lot of them actually want to use it for other reasons, like maybe they have a real interest or passion for video editing and filmmaking or script writing. I would want to make sure it's for the right reasons. If they say just to be famous and rich, I would be like, okay, no. Stay away. Don't go towards the internet to be famous and rich. It's going to make you miserable.
But if they have a real passion for storytelling and filmmaking and they see it as a way to express themselves, I would say that's amazing. Learn these skills. Because video editing, filmmaking, script writing, learning to use tools like ChatGPT, these are all really valuable skills no matter what you end up doing. Even if you fail as an influencer, you can probably get a great job elsewhere with those skills. I would steer them to that.
Guy Kawasaki:
And the last what if, and let's assume that you accept the position, okay? Joe Biden calls you up and says, "Run my campaign's social media." What do you do?
Taylor Lorenz:
Oh boy! I would start by engaging with people, not just approved content creators. I think one thing that specific political parties, especially like liberal politicians, have really shied away from is engaging with more progressive activists because they want to stick to these neutral party lines, and I get that. But I think to perform well on the internet, you've got to engage with everyone.
I'd be dealing with Twitch streamers and content creators, and I would really go out and use social media to try and engage with people and especially these progressive influencers on the internet. I wouldn't say we're just not dealing with those people because they're too radical or they're too progressive. I would try to bring them into the fold and use them to my advantage.
Guy Kawasaki:
Would this include Olivia Julianna?
Taylor Lorenz:
Yeah. I think people like her are exactly who we're talking about, these young Gen Z activists and commentators and people with followings. They have just so much to offer, and that's the future of politics in our country. I think we have this class of politicians on all political sides that's just very old and very out of touch, and we really need young people to seize control of this country in so many ways. I love people like Olivia and others who really stand up for what they believe in and use the internet to make their voices heard.
Guy Kawasaki:
Thank you, Taylor Lorenz, for such an interesting episode. I learned so much about the history of the internet by interviewing you and reading your new book. My thanks to the Remarkable People team. That would be Madisun Nuismer, producer, Tessa Nuismer, Alexis Nishimura, Luis Magaña, and Fallon Yates, and of course, the Remarkable sound design team. That's Jeff Sieh and Shannon Hernandez. Don't forget, Remarkable People is sponsored by MERGE4. Use the promo code "friendofguy" and you'll get a 30 percent discount. Until next time, mahalo and aloha.